Servicemen from Ukraine's Bila Tserkva Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment turned the bulky American Dual Mount Stinger into a smaller copy of the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger mobile short-range missile system. The weapon was showcased to Army-TV by air defense system gunner Oleksandr.
The two-missile installation is welded to the HMMWV vehicle. Although it lacks the additional aiming system and a few extra spare missiles, the makeshift solution effectively mirrors the Avenger, which is also based on the same chassis, and makes the otherwise immobile launcher much more flexible and safe to use under heavy counter-battery warfare conditions.
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Oleksandr's unit received first Dual Mount installations and missiles for them in the early days of russia's full-scale invasion, yet found them inconvenient and even dangerous. While the missile itself is portable, the Dual Mount installation with missiles is three boxes of 100 kg each.
Moreover, the mounted Stinger could not be carried further than 50 meters from the Humvee — the maximum length of the power cable. It also took a whole 15 minutes to deploy the system, making the team an easy target in the meantime.
The solution they came up with was to install Dual Mount Stinger on a tripod welded to the car. This solved a range of problems, Oleksandr notes: firstly, the launcher became powered from the generator carried right beside it on the car; secondly, the team only needs to assemble the launcher itself, speeding up the process. Thus, as soon as air threat alarm goes off, the soldiers are ready to intercept the target within 3 minutes.
This know-how has become literally life-saving since the enemy is trying to track down and eliminate air defense units. From Oleksandr's experience, an artillery strike can hit their location in a mere 2 minutes after they have fired a Stinger. With a firmly welded structure, the troops can quickly leave the spot after taking down a target at a speed of over 100 km/h.
Using this modernized Stinger-Humvee, air defense operator Oleksandr shot down two Su-25 aircraft, two Ka-52 helicopters, about five Orlan-10 drones, and Shahed-type loitering munitions. Note that the system operators must use missiles very accurately and economically, since each Stinger costs approximately EUR 780,000, and their supply to Ukrainian forces remains short.
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